The Hawk's Gray Feather Read online

  The Hawk's Gray Feather

  A Book of the Keltiad

  Patricia Kennealy Morrison

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  Also by Patricia Kennealy

  THE COPPER CROWN

  THE THRONE OF SCONE

  THE SILVER BRANCH

  Volume I of The Tales of Arthur

  The Hawk's Gray Feather

  A Book of The Keltiad

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to some longtime heroes of mine: T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and James Graham, first Marquess of Montrose; for all-purpose inspiration, and from whom I stole most of my (well, Arthur's) battle plans.

  Thanks too to heroes of another order: Henry Morrison, my agent; John Silbersack and Christopher Schelling, my editors, and the other good folk at NAL—all for conspicuous valor in the face of heavy fire (mine, alas!)—and the late Eileen Campbell Gordon of the late Rivendell Bookshop, for the unfailing supply of encouragement, friendship and world-class Celtic sourcebooks.

  And thanks beyond thanking to Arthur—or Ambrosius, or Riothamus, or Macsen Wledig—Celtic emperor or British king or Romanized warlord: Whatever name he may have called himself, or may have been called by others, he set it in letters of flame on the walls of legend, and without him this tale and many others could never have been told.

  * * *

  For my sister, Regina

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  Prologue

  In the Earth year 453 by the Common Reckoning, a small fleet of ships left Ireland, carrying emigrants seeking a new home in a new land. But the ships were not the leather-hulled boats of later legend, and though the great exodus was indeed led by a man called Brendan, he was not the Christian navigator-monk who later chroniclers would claim had discovered a New World across the western ocean.

  These ships were starships; their passengers the Danaans, descendants of—and heirs to the secrets of—Atlantis, that they themselves called Atland. The new world they sought was a distant double-ringed planet, itself unknown and half legend; and he who led them in that seeking would come to be known as Saint Brendan the Astrogator.

  Fleeing persecutions and a world that was no longer home to their ancient magics, the Danaans, who long ages since had come to Earth in flight from a dying sun's agonies, now went back to those far stars, and after two years' desperate wandering they found their promised haven. They named it Keltia, and Brendan, though he refused to call himself its king, ruled there long and well.

  In all the centuries that followed, Keltia grew and prospered. The kings and queens who were Brendan's heirs, whatever else they did, kept unbroken his great command: that, until the time was right, Keltia should not for peril of its very existence reveal itself to the Earth that its folk had fled from; nor forget, for like peril, those other children of Atland who had followed them into the stars—the Telchines, close kin and mortal foes, who became the Coranians as the Danaans had become the Kelts.

  Brendan had been twelve centuries in his grave when a time fell upon Keltia at which the Kelts still weep: a reign of blood and sorcerous violence, civil war and the toppling of the Throne of Scone itself; and all at the hand of Edeyrn the Archdruid, known ever after as Marbh-draoi—"Death-druid"—and rightly so.

  Edeyrn fastened round Keltia's throat the iron collar of the Druid Theocracy and Interregnum, and, with the help of traitor Druids and the terrible enforcers called Ravens, kept it locked there for two hundred terrible years. The royal house of Don—such of it as did survive the Marbh-draoi's slaughter—was forced into hiding, while a great resistance movement, known as the Counterinsurgency, was formed to fight against the Theocracy's forces.

  Yet even iron collars may be broken by a single sword-stroke, so that the arm behind the sword be strong enough—or so fated.

  This tale takes place fifteen hundred years before the reign of Aeron Queen of Kelts, as recounted in The Silver Branch, The Copper Crown and The Throne of Scone.

  The year of its telling is approximately 2100 AD by Earth Reckoning, and when it begins the year by that count is 1952.

  * * *

  Twelve musics we learn in the Star of Bards, and these the twelve:

  Geantrai, the joy-song,

  whose color is gold and whose shout creation;

  whose number is one, and one is the number of birth.

  Grdightrai, the heart-lilt,

  whose color is green and whose descant rapture;

  whose number is two, and two is the number of love.

  Bethtrai, the fate-rann,

  whose color is white and whose charge endurance;

  whose number is three, and three is the number of life.

  Goltrai, the grief-keen,

  whose color is red and whose cadence sorrow;

  whose num ber is four, and four is the number of death.

  Galtrai, the sword-dance,

  whose color is black and whose blazon challenge;

  whose number is five, and five is the number of war.

  Suantrai, the sleep-strain,

  whose color is gray and whose murmur calmness;

  whose number is six, and six is the number of peace.

  Saiochtrai, the mage-word,

  whose color is blue and whose guerdon wisdom;

  whose number is seven, and seven is the number of lore.

  Creachtrai, the wound-weird,

  whose color is brown and whose burden anguish;

  whose number is eight, and eight is the number of pain.

  Fiortrai, the honor-hymn,

  whose color is purple and whose banner justice;

  whose number is nine, and nine is the number of truth.

  Neartrai, the triumph-march,

  whose color iscrimson and whose anthem valor;

  whose number is ten, and ten is the number of strength.

  Dochtrai, the faith-chaunt,

  whose color is silver and whose crown transcendence;

  whose number is eleven, and eleven is the number of hope.

  Diachtrai, the soul-rune,

  sum of all before it,whose color is all colors and whose end perfection;

  whose number is twelve, and twelve is the number of God.

  —Taliesin ap Gwyddno

  * * *

  Foretale

  Say of the brightness: that gladness that is of a summer day, sky like blue cream, thick and deep and calm, wind warm and strong on a hill high above the plain, you lying bone-idle beside me on stubbled grass in the sun.

  Such a day it was that day I met my friend. 'Friend'! So small a word for so large a force as he was to be in all my lives: Arthur. In Keltia we say it better: 'anama-chara,' soul-friend, true-friend, the friend of the heart; that one out of all your comrades who can know you better than the love of your life. Sometimes the one who stands back to back with you in the fight, or shoulder to shoulder with you in the peace, is more a part of your deepest being than the one who sleeps side by side with you in the night. The face of a friend is ever the most accurate mirror, and so it was with us.

  Here now, so many years after that day in the sun on the hill, in Seren Beirdd—Star of the Bards, our college from ancient days at Caerdroia itself—I can remember such things better than I recall what passed here last week. And rightly so, for Star of the Bards is a star of memories; a fitting name for such a place, where memory is all and all alive, realer than the deeds recalled; for even the light of the stars we see is but a memory. We have never seen a star, only space's memory of its light, itself as it was ages since in time's long mirror; and maybe even that is a lie, a tale we tell to ourselves for comfort. Though I have been myself out among those stars, that light, I cannot even now say for sure.

  And mayb
e even this is a lie—perhaps I never knew him at all, not the friend, not the brother, not the King; never saw Arthur any more than I have seen a star. All I knew of him was what touched me, and maybe I made it up for comfort.

  I can comfort myself here well enough, remembering now what light was then: the hero-light that shone round Arthur, so bright and clear that I can still recall my astonishment that not everyone could see it even in the end; the lynx-light that lanced from Gweniver's eyes, that spark of cold clear intelligence that was her best grace and first defense; the werelight that Morgan made from the power of her mind, to be a shield and a shadow—if light can be a shadow—for all Keltia, from now until such day as that light must fall on other worlds than ours.

  But beyond these walls the light is real enough. It is spring again here at Caerdroia; the wind out of the east down the Strath carries greenness behind the snow-smell, and before high summer comes in I would set down that which I myself was witness to: I, Taliesin called Pen-bardd, son of Gwyddno and Medeni, of the name of Glyndour, born in Gwaelod drowned, foster-brother to Arthur the King, mate to Morgan Magistra.

  I have outlived them all now, as I had never thought to do: my King, my Queen, my lady, my sibs, my teachers; even my Companions, most of them, are gone before me. I write this account for myself, therefore, and a little for my son and his daughter; but mostly I write it for you and whoever else may come to read it. Whether foreign lands and after times will believe what is here set down I know not—that shall be a matter between my skill at telling and yours at hearing—but I am bard, not historian. There will be places where I shall set my word against that of the recorders, and who may say which of us has the right of it? All I can say to you is how it was for me.

  This place where bards have been made for a thousand years—though I myself was never schooled here as should have been, as now the young folk are free to be—has become my home, more truly home than any other place. They are most kind and caring of me, if now and again they treat me overmuch as a living treasure or sacred relic, especially those young ones; though they are a little frightened of me as well, and it is good they should be so. The young should always be a little—a very little—feared of those from whom they learn.

  Mostly they learn such things as I can teach them, and ever they will try to tease from me such things as are not scribed down in the histories and cast already in legend's daunting stone: the little things, the comic tales and tender moments, the fits of error into which those who are not gods and legends—and especially those who are—can often fall. It would make a cat laugh—it would make Arthur shout with mirth—to hear what the years have made of us, he and Gwen and Morgan and I and the others, each of us in a different way. But there is naught a poor bard can do to change it now, and I think I would not if I could. For that is the way of legends, they so often have so little to do with the truth—and no more should they, for they serve a different purpose. Some say a higher one.

  I have spoken to you here as I would were you sitting by me in this chamber, our toes to the hearth and full methers to our hands. But the tale I tell now I tell as a bard must tell it, for I am nothing if not bard; and, not bard, I am nothing in truth…

  For it all happened long since, and those who cast the longest shadows are vanished now into that fierce and burning Light. As for my own part in it, it seems that it happened to someone else, and not to me at all.

  And perhaps that is right and as it should be; any road, it seems to make the best tale so, and what true bard could wish it other?

  * * *

  Book I:

  Geantraf

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  Chapter One

  The planet Gwynedd is a fair world, mountainous for the most part, roofed and ribbed with stone, some of the toughest stone in all Keltia—hard and strong and close-grained and fine. Of stone too are its people: Kymry of the truest Kymry, and of those the folk of Arvon in the west are truer still.

  They have much cause to be: Arvon, lapped by the sea on three sides, walled by mountain fences from the rest of the continent, breeds them so, and has done for ages past.

  I speak not to vaunt, for I myself was born on the borders of that land of sea and stone: I Taliesin, youngest child of Gwyddno, lord of Cantred Gwaelod, and Medeni his wife, who died of some plague when I was yet too young to know her. There were often plagues in those times, many said sent by Edeyrn the Marbh-draoi, to chasten the race of Kymry, that if he could not bend their stiff necks then by gods he would break them.

  But for us as for the rest of Keltia, the chiefest plague was the Marbh-draoi himself. Edeyrn, onetime Archdruid of Keltia: It seemed that never had there been a time when he had not been sitting at Caerdroia, in Turusachan, seat of our rulers since the days of Brendan. Once, though, he had been a loyal servant of the Copper Crown, counselor and friend to Alawn Last-king—until he overthrew him.

  In truth, Edeyrn had been Theocrat, magical dictator, usurping overlord—call him what you will, it does not alter the evil fact of him—for near two hundred years. And though we Kelts are a long-lived folk—not a few of us complete two centuries in full health and wits—the Marbh-draoi (as all in Keltia called him, though never to his face—it means 'Death-druid', and it was full-earned) was not too far off that age when first he came to power. Therefore it is most unnatural, this span of his; none can say why such a gift of years should be granted to so bent a one, and some even mutter darkly that he is some alien changeling come amongst us from outside. They are wrong who say so: Evil as he is, Edeyrn is beyond question Kelt, and his powers Keltic beyond question—and we will find in time an answer to both him and them.

  Yet that answer has been long in coming. Kelts are independent souls, and we do not suffer gladly the rule of such a master. Almost since the day Edeyrn took power for himself, breaking the ancient rule of Ard-tiarnas and Fainne and Senate and Assembly and House of Peers that has served us so well and so long, there has been a resistance.

  We call it the Counterinsurgency, for most of Keltia, save for certain gross opportunists and treasonous rabble, regard the Marbh-draoi as the true insurgent. Still, he carried many with him in those first victories, to our sorrow and everlasting shame: Druids of his own order; certain of the lesser ruling families, such as thought to profit by the event (and aye and alas, some of the greater ones as well); upstarts too, who lost no time in tying themselves into his cloak-fringe.

  But many more loyal ones stood away: the great orders of the Ban-draoi and the Fianna and the bards; many even of Edeyrn's own Druids; most of the highest kindreds on all the worlds; and were forced into hiding for it, or done to death where they could be caught. As for the common folk of Keltia, they chose much as common folk, or indeed any folk, anywhere, would choose: to be left alone to live their lives as best they might; with honor if it could be managed, with the least degree of dishonor if not. Though not to be greatly praised, neither are they to be greatly blamed; they helped where and when and as they could, and if they could not help then at least they did not often hinder. They wished only to survive, and sometimes—oftentimes—even that poor grace was not to be given them.

  By the time I was born—in the year 1946 of the Common Reckoning, but in our Keltic numbering 1493 Anno Brendani—the Counterinsurgency, whose fortunes in war had been somewhat in eclipse of late, was once more rising to another great wave of rebellion. The backwash of that wave, though it was to swamp many a coast, would in time rear a crest that would break in thunder, and the flood of that following tide would swirl even to the gates of Caerdroia, and beyond.

  On the northwest coast of Arvon, in the sea-province of Gwaelod, stood the castle of Tair Rhamant, 'Three Romances'—named so by the grateful bard who had told three splendid tales to a prince of Gwynedd, and who had had for reward both castle and province. Whatever else those marvellous tales may have been (besides most persuasive), they are long forgotten; castle and province too are gone now, and all the folk with them, but in those days Tair Rh
amant was a wondrous place for a growing child.

  I was the youngest of my family. There were seven of us—four brothers and three sisters, all of us dark-haired and blue-eyed: Tegau, the eldest daughter, my father's heir; then three boys born of one birth, Elwyn, Cadreth and Adaon; then two girls two years apart, Shelia and Rainild; and then, a score of years after, myself.

  I spent those early years at Tair Rhamant seemingly as an only child, for the others were nearly always from home, serving in the hidden hunted armies of the outlawed Counterinsurgency, and they came and went upon the orders of the secret commanders. I was in deep awe of them all, of course, chiefly because they were older and a child so very much younger than its sibs cannot but admire and envy their advanced years for those years' sake alone; but also because even to my child's mind it was plain that what they did—what small part I could understand from the very little that was told me—was a goal and a glory. And my eldest sister, Tegau, seemed to me the most glorious of them all.

  Everyone in Keltia—and many beyond, even, now—knows the story of Tegau Goldbreast: how, losing her right breast in battle with the forces of Owein Rheged, Edeyrn's arm on Gwynedd, of whom I shall have much to say later on, she scorned to have the healers regenerate it—my folk have long since mastered such techniques—but instead replaced the lost breast with one fashioned of pure gold, vowing to keep it so until such time as Keltia was once again free. I have been told that outworlders often find this tale strange and troubling; though I can see where they might find it so, it never seemed that way to me, even as a lad of five, nor I think to any other of our folk. Perhaps it takes a Kelt truly to understand her reasons—and a Kelt to have had such reasons in the first place.